There’s a reason why there aren’t many comedy Westerns, and even fewer that are actually any good, and that’s because the subgenre as a whole is very difficult to pull off. So you have to credit Seth MacFarlane for not only having the cojones to follow up “Ted” with such an offbeat genre hybrid film, but actually succeed where so many others have failed. “A Million Ways to Die in the West” is probably his most ambitious project to date, and although that may sound strange for a man who made a movie about a talking teddy bear, it’s nice to see a filmmaker with that kind of confidence. Like most things in MacFarlane’s career, “A Million Ways to Die in the West” is guaranteed to divide audiences, but it’s a really solid comedy with more than enough laughs to offset its minor shortcomings.

MacFarlane stars as Albert, a cowardly sheep farmer who’s astutely aware of just how horrible life is in 1882 Arizona. After weaseling his way out of a gun fight, Albert’s embarrassed girlfriend Louise (Amanda Seyfried) dumps him for Foy (Neil Patrick Harris), the arrogant owner of the local moustachery. While contemplating leaving town for a fresh start, Albert saves a beautiful woman named Anna (Charlize Theron) and they immediately bond over their shared hatred of the Wild West. When Albert challenges Foy to a duel in the hope of winning back Louise, Anna agrees to help him become a better gunfighter, falling for the lovable loser in the process. But what Albert doesn’t realize is that Anna is married to a dangerous outlaw named Clinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson), who rides into town upon hearing of Anna’s infidelity to kill the man that stole his woman.

The initial reaction to the idea of a new Three Stooges film for 2012 brought no end of moans and groans from Moe, Larry & Curly purists, but after Bobby and Peter Farrelly’s film hit theaters, many were surprised by the fact that it didn’t completely suck. Indeed, it was actually about as good as anyone could’ve hoped, thanks in no small part to the Farrelly’s devotion to making the best possible tribute to the comedic trio that they possibly could, aided in no small part by the efforts of Chris Diamantopoulos (Moe), Sean Hayes (Larry), and Will Sasso (Curly). Bullz-Eye talked to Peter Farrelly in conjunction with the film hitting DVD, and he spoke about the trials and tribulations of getting the film made, his Zen attitude toward the lengthy casting process, and his continued optimism that the Farrellys’ next film will indeed be “Dumb & Dumber 2.”

Bullz-Eye: Not that you haven’t been asked this more than a few times, but…what’s your very first memory of experiencing the Three Stooges?

Peter Farrelly: You know, the God’s honest truth…? I don’t remember it. Because they were always there. I’ve been watching the Stooges since I could turn on a TV. But I guess the thing I recall the most is, for some reason, I went through a period when I was, like, a freshman in high school where they were on every day from I think 4 – 5 PM, and I just remember it being the highlight of that winter. [Laughs.] Every day, because it was freezing out, you’d just get in the house and turn on the TV. Every kid in my school at that time was watching. For some reason, they were going through some sort of a renaissance. Everybody was watching them that year.

BE: Not that you guys have ever been afraid of testing boundaries, but it would seem to be pretty daunting to update the Three Stooges. I think the last time anyone tried it was with “The Three Robonic Stooges.“

PF: Yeah, we knew it wasn’t gonna be easy, but we love the Stooges and…the God’s honest truth is that we felt like they were going away. I had little kids…well, they’re 11 and 13 years old now, but the last few years, I asked their friends, and two-thirds of them did not know the Three Stooges. Or they had heard of them, but they didn’t really know who they were. And that bothered us, because we’re huge Stooges fans – they’ve given me more laughs than anybody – and we wanted to bring them back. But we knew that…you know, look, anytime you do anything like this… There was a huge, huge opportunity to fall on our faces, but I did believe that it should be done, the movie should be made, and I felt very confident that we could pull it off.

With Seth MacFarlane’s “Ted” in theaters, we decided to take a look back at his hilarious take-down of über douche-bag Donald Trump. Also, check out the excellent Will Harris Bullz-Eye interview with Seth MacFarlane from 2007.

Summer is in full swing, and the Fourth of July is just days away. Hopefully many of you are ready and able to get some R&R over the next couple of weeks. We’ll keep slaving away of course to give you some reading and entertainment options as usual.

Before we get to the reading, we wanted to point out the ultimate time waster we’ve launched that has nothing to with reading. Yesterday we launched our new Picture of the Day feature here on the blog showcasing some of the best photos we’ve published through the years of our models. We’re sure you’ll like this one . . .

We doubt much of our audience will head out to see “Magic Mike,” but David Medsker’s review wasn’t too bad. We’ll take his word for it as we don’t plan on seeing the Steven Soderbergh film. Meanwhile, “People Like Us” gets a solid rating from Jason Zingale and while Ezra Stead loved “Take This Waltz.”

This week Will Harris has another great interview with Maurice LaMarche about “Futurama.”

As you can see from the photo above, the coolest thing we had for the week was Gerardo Orlando’s recap of his adventure driving the 2013 Mustang Boss 302 at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah. If you ever get the chance to drive a machine like this on a track make sure you take advantage of it.

It’s summer, and of course it’s time to enjoy great beers, but should we be mixing beer and lemonade? It sounds like a bad idea, and our beer expert Mike Barakacs addresses the topic this week:

Some people think that a shandy is the perfect summer drink. I am not one of those people. The argument in favor almost always stresses the thirst quenching properties, which is fine; I’ll grant that these concoctions can quench a thirst. My only argument against is the dire taste. A shandy is, most often, lemonade mixed with a beer. Lemonade and beer are not anything like peanut butter and chocolate. These two great tastes do not really belong together in my mind. But, perhaps I’ve just never had a decent one? Well, I’ve just spent a hot month of moving and mowing and painting — and tasting shandies to find out.